Oh! Mes enfants! I am sick! (insert violin music here) Yes, I have a cold or the flu. Does it matter which? The point is, I am sufferring! Like most of you when you are sick, I have no time to be so. I spend my days convincing myself that I am not sick enough to go home (LIE), that I will feel better after another glass of water (LIE), and that my sudden loss of appetite really isn’t that unusual in myself (THE BIGGEST LIE OF ALL – If I didn’t worry about my weight, I would eat like an NFL linebacker 24/7. Don’t believe me? Ask Donna, she lived with me for 8 months and reportedly had never seen anyone eat as much as me). My throat hurts, my head hurts, my body is all achy-shmachy. At night, I don’t so much dream as have paranoid delusions (you’ve had ’em when you’re sick. You sleep like the dead for 2 hours and then suddenly find yourself waking up every fifteen minutes CONVINCED the communists are about to bust down the door and steal your knitting yarn! BASTARDS! WHY would they do that to me? Unless it’s not the communists, it’s the fascists! Yeah, that’s right. The fascists! They want to take my yarn and sell it for double the price! Miserable hunchbacks. I oughta. . . wait, where was I? Is it time to take my Neo Citran again? Has it been four hours yet? It must have been (check clock) Wait a minute!! Those communists have screwed with my clock!! Setting it ahead four hours so I won’t get any rest and will work more! Damn Communism!! Dammit!!)

Then you wake up in the morning, drenched in feverish sweat and wonder why you don’t feel rested.

It sucks being sick!!

If I was a celebrity I could check myself into my nearest high class exclusive hospital and have cute doctors fretting over me, soap opera like, wondering if I’ll make it. (But doctor, will I live??? Will I ever be a world class cellist just like I’ve dreamed off since I was a poor vagrant on the streets before I became so fabulously wealthy for doing nothing except have my picture taken every time I leave the house? SOB! THE DRAMA!!) But being the real world, I can’t face the eight hours I would have to wait in line at the local clinic – nor can I afford to take that kind of time off work, so I schlepp to and fro, telling myself that tomorrow, I will feel better!! Neo citran, Ny-Quil, Advil, Cold FX, Vitamin C Halls – my high end drugs of choice!! My body and my brain are in a war!! Who will give out first?? The body? With its low-grade fever, foggy brain and achy muscles, it appears to be ahead of the game. But this is still early in the match. The brain has a memory! It remembers that you do get well eventually, you just have to keep going! The brain also has a calculator and is keeping a running tally of Mastercard and Visa. They won’t take “But I’m sick!” as an payment installment.